Nepali judiciary is not sensitised on caste-based discrimination

Just as in rape cases where the victims are the most crucial evidence, in caste-based discrimination too, the victims should be considered the most vital evidence.

Caste-based discrimination is so entrenched in Nepal, even the country’s legal system fails to see it as a crime. Recently, in the infamous Soti lynchings—in which Nabaraj BK and his five friends were killed by a mob on May 23, 2020 over BK’s affair with an ‘upper caste’ girl—the High Court in Surkhet upheld life imprisonment handed down by the Rukum District Court to 23 people involved in the murder. But it overturned the convictions for caste-based discrimination.